Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Because a picture of Groucho would have been too obvious...

My friend Richard just alerted me to this.I've heard of The Great Animal Crackers Doppelganger Mystery but this is ridiculous:.A nice new CD of Groucho radio extracts - always welcome, always nice. I like listening to them as I drift off to sleep at night.But who - I say who - is the half-arsed would-be lookalike on the cover???:.We've all dressed up as Groucho at some point in our life, either for a party, to amuse our colleagues and loved ones, or to try and get free meals in hotels and restaurants.But we don't end up on the front of official Groucho CD releases.Which is ironic, because the chances are we look more like Groucho than this ding-dong does.Let's see him again:.Now come on! This guy looks more like Groucho than he does:.And this guy looks a lot more like Groucho than he does:.Let's face it, even this guy looks more like Groucho than he does:.Somebody knows who he is. I wonder if David does, for instance. (I'm off to ask him as soon as I post this.)It's not just someone dressed as Groucho for fun. My guess is it's someone who played him on tv or the stage once. He's obviously doing it professionally... which is more than EMI are, clearly..Oh, okay. Just once more:.

Damian -You're right! The scandal deepens: the geezer is on the front of a book of Groucho's writing! How can a thing like this possibly happen???

Anonymous - Anthony Franco is an intriguing suggestion: I've looked him up but can't find any photos of him in character. Can you link me to any?And please do feel free to use a name - we've all got them.

For what it's worth, if you go to Amazon.com, you'll see this photo appears as the "cover" of the 2008 Kindle edition of The Essential Groucho. The print edition published in 2000 features a real photo of Groucho.

Bingo! Way to go, Tom! I just Googled "Alfred Eisenstaedt Groucho" and found a blog post illustrating yet another misuse of the Eisenstaedt photo by the New York Times. The author of the post, Steven Thompson, also included a copy of the page from Life Goes to the Movies to which Tom refers in the preceding comment.

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Swordfish

I got a Super-8 projector when I was eight and a Betamax video recorder when I was eleven. I fell in love with Universal horror films in the summer of 1983 and the Marx Brothers the following Christmas. In 1984 I bought my first Halliwell's Film Guide and met the man himself.
That brings us more or less up to date.